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Her skin flushed at the reminder of their previous encounter.
“Or did you just pretend nothing ever happened between us and kis—?”
She slapped a hand over his mouth.
“—don’t finish that foul sentence!” she bit out.
He shifted out of her touch. “You just agreed to hear me out, to give me a chance, and moments later, you ran into your lover’s arms.”
Her heart thundered. His voice hadn’t raised even a decibel, yet she could make out the storm beneath his quietly spoken words. Most people raged when they were mad. Dev, she realized, went stone cold. The chillier his voice, the angrier he was.
“If you had waited for a second outside, then you would have seen Rajiv’s wife with him. Sheena was with us in the ladies room all along.”
“I don’t believe you,” he rasped.
“Then that is your problem, not mine!” Avantika fumed. “You’re behaving so damn stubborn.”
He moved closer to her. She pushed further into the wall, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere she could escape his looming presence.
His lips moved closer to hers, and her breaths quickened. She turned her face to the side, refusing to show him how he affected her.
His breath heated her cheek, and her heart rate kicked up a notch.
“Tell me something, Avantika,” he whispered against her skin. “Does he make you feel the way I do?”
He tugged her left hand and raised it up to his mouth. His teeth scraped the soft skin of the back of her hand—an act which only he’d ever done, one which made her tremble till date. He heard her rasping breaths and moved another inch closer to her, this time eliminating all space between them. Her body roared in approval, welcoming his heat, melting into him as it always did. She inhaled, and his sexy, spicy scent—leather and musk—reached her lungs, making her ache with need. The desire that had been barely banked after their last encounter on the sofa roared back to life.
Her lips parted, and the ice in his gaze gave way to fire. His mouth lowered to hers, and she tipped her chin up to meet his kiss, but he stepped back, taking all his warmth away, leaving her cold again.
“De…” She swallowed his name. Saying his name out aloud meant giving in to him, and she was still waging war with herself regarding him. Yes, she’d agreed to hear him out; yes, she wanted him, but that didn’t take away the fact that she didn’t trust him fully yet. That she was afraid of what she might learn.
His expression turned to stone. “I give up, Avantika. I’ve done everything you asked me to. Contrary to your own expectations, you’ve been perfectly safe with me. I’ve hinted often enough that there was more to the past than you believe, and yet I don’t trust that you will give me an unbiased chance. You refuse to take my name and go and meet fucking Rajiv Mehra when you know his presence in your life irks me. So now, I’m letting you go.” He tossed his hands in his denim pockets. “You’re free, Avantika. You and I are done. Rest assured, I will keep my end of the bargain. I will return all your lands and assets back to your family, and I will leave Dubai. You will never see me again, ever.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. Oh God! She could leave him right now. He would disappear from her life once again, and she’d have peace, finally. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted for so long?
She stared at him. Chaos and destruction were written on his face. But deep inside the churning flecks of gold in his eyes was the underlying hurt, devastation…and defeat. Seeing him like this made her chest ache.
She had a choice to make here. If she stayed, she would end up in his bed; there was no doubt about that. If not for her phone that morning, they’d have been in bed right now.
Her pulse kicked up.
He was the only man who’d made her feel something. No man had ever come close to making her body light up the way Dev’s breath on her cheek or his simple bite on the back of her hand did. She’d closed herself off to desire and lust for so long, but Dev made all her hitherto tamped emotions return in a dizzying rush.
They had so much unresolved between them, and after last night and his shocking gift, she could no longer deny that her curiosity had been piqued. She had to hear him out, for both their sakes.
“No,” she announced.
His eyes widened. “No?”
She took a step closer to him and fisted his t-shirt with both hands. “I said no.”
“Why?” He placed his hands atop hers. “You clearly don’t want this.”
“What I want is for you to stop making fucking assumptions about me,” she shot back.
He rocked back, looking dazed, and the urge to soothe him rose like a tidal wave in her chest.
“I left a note informing you that I’m meeting Sheena,” she explained quietly.
